


the world that has made us can no longer contain us

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, On the Run, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), but with a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14729567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: “I didn’t come for a visit.”“Well, that’s not surprising at all,” Clint says sarcastically. “Why did you come, then? To tell me the world is on fire? That there’s another big problem no one can solve?”“Not exactly,” Natasha says evasively. “Something came up -- something that I can’t take care of on my own.”“You’re not on your own,” Clint points out. “You’ve got Sam and Steve.”“They can’t help me with this,” Natasha says, and Clint raises both eyebrows.“But a house arrest father on the run in the middle of home improvements can?”





	the world that has made us can no longer contain us

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to write some Clint and Nat before the events of Infinity War, as there are potentially two years to explore between Natasha going off on her own and Clint going under house arrest. This is feelings and a bit of mission...but really, it's mostly a lot of feelings.
> 
>  
> 
> __
> 
> _And sweating like demons they scream through our speakers_  
>  But we leave the sound on 'cause silence is harder.  
> And no one's the killer and no one's the martyr  
> The world that has made us can no longer contain us.  
> \- Regina Spektor

The last day looks and feels exactly how Clint wants to remember it.

There’s music playing, wafting through the house and filtering through the open bay windows in the living room -- Laura’s favorite soft jazz that she liked to put on when she had control of whatever device was left in her possession. Lila’s playing on the lawn with her dolls, talking to herself in different voices. Nathaniel is asleep in the portable crib that Clint’s set up on the porch, his small body stretched wide across the enclosed space. Cooper’s quiet, nose in a book as usual, and Clint’s own book lies across his legs, cracked down the spine.

The air smells of pine and the morning’s fresh rain, the cool air running its delicate legs over his bare arms. He breathes in deep and lets the scents and sounds settle in every inch of his body before he exhales, staring over the treeline and into the distance.

It had been two weeks since he’d officially accepted the house arrest deal with Scott that Ross and the government had negotiated -- and two weeks since he’d decided that he’d rather be caught dead feeling like a fugitive in his own home. They’d go south, he decided. They’d commandeer an old safe house that had been off the grid for years, a cabin in the area that was remote but still allowed them to be close enough to civilization so they didn’t have to completely go underground. As a bonus, it was an hour and a half from their house, which Clint claimed was “hiding in plain sight, the safest thing we can do without being here. They’d think we’d go to Guam or something if we ever left.”

Laura hadn’t been quite as on board with the idea of uprooting her family, especially given that both kids were in the middle of school and other adolescent activities, even though Clint had assured her it wouldn’t be forever.

“Just until some of the things around here calm down,” he had said while they laid together in bed, her head on his chest. “I’m not saying we should leave forever and never come home. We will come home. I promise.”

“This doesn’t seem like that kind of promise,” Laura had responded, and Clint hadn’t been able to tune out the weariness in her voice. It hurt a little, knowing that she doubted him after all these years, but he also knew that he couldn’t blame her for feeling uncertain. After everything -- after aliens and Hydra and undercover missions that had led to hospital stays and unreturned phone calls -- the stint in the Raft was a shakingly abrupt wake-up call, a reminder of the dangerous life Clint would always lead even if he tried to keep his family out of it.

But Laura Barton, the woman who had married her husband in a rustic barn on a vineyard, putting rings on a hand that she knew routinely held guns and knives and arrows, had always understood why some things had to be different. And so the next day, after they had shepherded Cooper and Lila off to school and fed an overly enthusiastic Nate, Laura had turned around in the middle of sipping coffee and simply nodded. Clint didn’t need words to know what she was telling him she was okay with.

“Heard dinner’s going to be quite the affair.”

Clint looks up and over his shoulder as Natasha steps out of the doorway dressed down in a pair of thin jeans and a loose SHIELD training shirt. Her hair, dark and russett and still damp, hugs her shoulders gently.

“Yeah, well.” Clint shifts closer to Nathaniel as Natasha sits down next to him. “You know Laura. When she knows things are gonna go to shit, she likes to go all out to pretend they’re not.”

“You shouldn’t swear in front of your son,” Natasha points out. “He’ll grow up just like you.”

Clint sighs, rolling his eyes. “Careful, or you won’t get any wine.”

“Oh, in _that_ case.” Natasha makes a face. “I should take everything I’m going to get before I have to be alone with Steve and Sam for the rest of my foreseeable future.”

"Nat.”

“Hmmm?” She’s sitting with her legs up on the deck and she looks so goddamn comfortable, he wants to kick her just to make her look awkward. Natasha’s never looked awkward or out of place anywhere, but the farm was somewhere she’s always given off an air of relaxation that’s unparalleled, despite the fact she resisted visiting for way too long at the beginning of their partnership.

Clint takes a deep breath. “If I asked you to stop, would you stop?”

“The truth?” Natasha asks in a low voice. “No.”

“Okay,” Clint says, because he’s pretty much expected that answer, as much as he’d hoped maybe recent circumstances would have caused her to answer differently. “If I asked you to not go, would you still go?”

Natasha purses her lips. “Would that mean we wouldn’t be able to see each other again?”

Clint hesitates. “Maybe,” he admits, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in his stomach. He’d never entertained the idea of Natasha’s leaving being permanent, because they always went their separate ways. They also always came back to each other, whether it was a mission or a world-saving rescue or a birthday party. But it was a brave new world now, Accords and house arrests and all the things that came with government regulations and a broken team and a family that needed protection more than Clint needed his bow. There was no way he could promise anything the way he was used to for the past six or even ten years.

Natasha turns to stare at him. In her eyes, there’s a look of longing and softness, but he also notices a coating of cool steel.

“Yes,” she says firmly. “I would still go.”

 

***

 

**Six Months Later**

 

“Clint.”

“Hmph.”

It’s not what he means to say, but he’s got an apple stuck in his mouth and his eyes fixated on the broken shingles of the cottage roof. He’s been studying it for the past half an hour trying to figure out how the hell to get it out without making ten other pieces of the roof come out with it, missing lunch in the process, so Laura had half-heartedly tossed him an apple. He straightens up and takes the apple out of his mouth, chewing and swallowing.

“I might need to come back to this.”

“Then come back to it,” Laura’s voice is exasperated but calm. “Cooper needs help with math, and Lila wants me to finish braiding her hair, and I can’t be in two places at once.”

Clint nods at the sky, wiping his hands on his work jeans and carefully shimmies down the side of the house. He lands nimbly on both feet with a flourish.

“I still got it.”

“I never doubted that,” Laura replies, wiping a lock of hair from his forehead, which is coated in sweat. “At least, not from what you’ve shown me in bed. Take a break, Hawkeye. You’ve been out here all day.”

He has, and while he hasn’t been on the roof the whole time, he’s been in the sun and chilly winds long enough for his hair to be a mess and his arms to be flushed with both windburn and sunburn. There was wood to be chopped and leaves to be raked and fish to be caught in the small lake nearby, and Laura wanted to try to start a small garden, so he’d been trying to figure out how to help with _that_ even though it was just herbs.

“Yeah, probably due for a nap or something, huh?”

Laura gives him a knowing look and turns, walking back inside the cabin that’s doubled as their home for the past few months. Clint follows at a slower pace; in a strange swap of emotions, Laura had adapted more quickly than he’d expected to the cabin, making it less of a vacation space and more of a home. Clint, despite his years of being transient and multiple safehouse stays, was having a harder time getting used to the fact this wasn’t just somewhere to relax and enjoy time off. Laura had done her best, mostly for the kids -- she’d gone overboard using the weekly allocations of money that Fury wired to them from an undercover account to decorate with new furniture and comfy blankets, and she’d let Cooper and Lila decorate their rooms with pictures and mementos from outside so long as they weren’t living or dangerous. But Clint knew as well as she did that uprooting an entire family wasn’t as easy as it would have been when it was just Clint and Laura, or even Clint and Laura and one or two babies. Babies, like Nate, were confused about their surroundings but they didn’t complain or worry about their lives changing.

“Hey, kiddo.” He enters the kitchen, finding Cooper sitting at the table with a pencil stuck between his teeth. “What’s the issue with math?”

Cooper makes a face, removing the pencil and throwing it down on the table. “I dunno. I can’t figure this out.”

“Sure you can,” Clint says easily, sliding into a chair. “Math is just a bunch of patterns. You’re great at seeing patterns, remember?” He focuses on hastily scrawled numbers and numerous scratch-outs as Laura walks into the bedroom, and he listens to her talking quietly to Lila while she works on her hair. Nate’s been asleep for the past hour, and Clint’s hoping that he stays asleep, because he could use as much quiet as possible.

“Can I help mom with the food and stuff?” Cooper asks after they’ve tackled another five problems on his worksheet. “With the fish?”

Clint looks up, noticing Laura has returned to the kitchen and has started to lay out that night’s dinner preparations. He smiles to himself when he notices the big fish Cooper had pulled from the lake mostly by himself with Clint’s help earlier in the week, and catches Laura’s eye when she turns around -- it’s been years and he knows by now not to answer about blowing off school work unless she’s in agreement about something.

“Yeah,” he confirms, sitting back in his chair. Cooper grins and gets up, running over to Laura, who puts a hand on his back and leans over to kiss his head. Clint rubs a hand over the beard he’s started to grow and takes advantage of the fact that Laura’s now too busy to focus on him when she’s got children around her to worry about, especially when he hears Nate start to cry from the bedroom down the hall. He gets up before the wail can increase to a horribly shrill volume and picks his son up from the crib.

“Hey, buddy. What’s the matter, crankypants?” He bounces Nate against his chest, trying to get him settled. “Come on, I know you don’t want to cry all day.”

“Ah bah bah,” Nate responds, scrunching his face into a wrinkled mess.

“Ah bah bah to you, too,” Clint says. He checks Nate’s diaper, makes a quick change in less time than it takes the baby to actually notice that something has happened, and walks back out of the room.

“Why are you stealing my son, and should I be concerned?” Laura asks mildly as Clint passes through the kitchen.

“Just gonna take him out for some air. Don’t worry. We’ll stay close.”

He hears Laura sigh as he closes the door and catches sight of Cooper’s smirk, the one that Clint likes to take credit for because it’s so similar to his own. The air has chilled even in the short time that he’s been inside, and now that he’s not actively working, he’s more aware of the cold that has probably been more prominent than he’s realized. He decides to make the walk quick, moving brisky through the trees and around the perimeter of the house. He’s about halfway around, almost at the spot that holds the thick oak he routinely uses for target practice, when his ears pick up on the soft snap of a twig. He tenses, clutching his son more tightly. Nathaniel, oblivious to any impending danger, happily sucks on his thumb.

“Turns out you’re a hard man to track, Mr. Barton.”

Clint lets out a breath, his body relaxing, and he smiles wryly at the tree. “How did you find me?”

“I have my ways,” Natasha answers. “You may have not told me where you were going, but I know how to follow patterns. Besides, did you really think I’d let my last words to you be that I’d be fine with never seeing you again?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Clint says, turning around. He stops himself from spewing out an obscene comment in the presence of his one and a half year old when he sees Natasha, looking familiar and normal with the exception of her hair, which has been cut back to chin-length and bleached a bright blonde Clint hasn’t seen since their early undercover days.

“Oh.” Natasha reaches up and fingers a strand. “Yeah. I had to make a change and keep myself off the radar. You’re not the only one the government wants to bring in, you know.”

Clint nods, shifting Nathaniel carefully. “How are you?”

“Good,” Natasha says. “I’m good.” Her voice is calm and confident, but Clint can tell she’s not telling him the whole story.

“Yeah?”

Natasha doesn’t answer, instead looking around and nodding towards the house. “It’s a pretty nice place.”

“It’s not ideal,” Clint admits. “But it works. And we’re pretty much off the grid.”

“That’s important.” Natasha pauses. “Cooper and Lila?”

“Laura drives them to school every day. She picks them up and they come right home -- no activities or anything, but we thought that we should let them keep that routine, for their sake and ours. And also, if anyone starts snooping, it doesn’t look suspicious that we pulled them out of the world and also left our home. She’s got an old car and we’re using one of our license plates that we took from the barn.”

“Smart,” Natasha says. “I should’ve known you’d let your paranoia run the show.”

“What can I say, I’m a man of my word.” Clint breaks eye contact to give Nathaniel some much-needed affection, before glancing up again. “Wanna come in and eat?”

Natasha shakes her head. “I didn’t come for a visit.”

“Well, that’s not surprising at all,” Clint says sarcastically. “Why did you come, then? To tell me the world is on fire? That there’s another big problem no one can solve?”

“Not exactly,” Natasha says evasively. “Something came up -- something that I can’t take care of on my own.”

“You’re not on your own,” Clint points out. “You’ve got Sam and Steve.”

“They can’t help me with this,” Natasha says, and Clint raises both eyebrows.

“But a house arrest father on the run in the middle of home improvements can?”

Natasha smiles faintly. “You always were a pain in the ass, Barton. And I’m not being nice, I only used that phrase because I don’t want to be responsible for teaching my namesake bad language.”

“He’s probably halfway there already,” Clint mutters, before raising his voice. “What else?”

“There’s nothing else,” Natasha responds. “I’ll be back in a day. Just let me know whether or not you want to come.”

“That’s it?” Clint can’t keep the annoying whine out of his voice, even though he knows this is classic Natasha, albeit the Natasha that he hoped after so many years together would disappear: the Natasha that showed up in his living room at ten in the morning, accepting coffee and dropping cryptic hints about what she needed, never letting on how important anything was but assuming he would get the idea from the way she was speaking. It was also the Natasha that had grown out of their relationship -- the one that could say one word or not say anything at all and know that she could communicate her needs just as well as if she had said ten sentences out loud.

“Yes,” Natasha says, leaning forward to kiss Nathaniel on the head quickly, her blonde hair brushing the top of his arm. “That’s it.”

 

***

 

When he walks back into the house, trying to put Natasha’s words (and her unexpected presence) behind him, he finds Laura sitting alone in the kitchen. He squints curiously as he closes the door with one hand.

“Where are the minions?”

Laura gives him a look, but doesn’t admonish him. “I sent Cooper and Lila to relax,” she says, nodding towards the bedrooms. “I figured they didn’t need to do _all_ the dinner prep with me.”

“Smart move,” Clint says as Laura pulls out the highchair, allowing Clint to strap Nate in. He unearths a small container of last night’s macaroni and cheese from the fridge and warms it up quickly before putting it in front of his son, who delights in picking up each small curl of pasta as if it’s a prize. Clint stands back to watch him, and feels Laura’s hands wrap tightly around his waist.

“He’s pretty enthralled with his food,” Laura says as she presses her face into Clint’s back.

“Yeah,” Clint agrees, leaning into her.

Laura hums quietly. “Kids are pretty occupied, too.”

He turns, allowing her to shift his body so that they’re facing each other, and Laura’s lips part in a small but tantalizing grin. Clint reaches up and runs a finger down her cheek, then leans in and kisses her deeply. When Laura kisses back, he realizes her intimacy isn’t exactly random or misplaced. It’s been awhile -- not forever, but certainly longer than they’re used to, given that alone time was hard to find in a smaller house with everyone on guard. He wants to give in so badly, but he can’t help the distracted thoughts stemming from Natasha’s random appearance. Laura pulls back, and he can tell from the look on her face that he’s doing a shit job at pretending to be into the moment.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“ _Clint_.”

Clint sighs, leaning in to kiss her again. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I just...I have a lot on my mind. Maybe we can pick this up again after dinner?”

Laura looks slightly disappointed, but drops her arms. “Of course. You know where to find me.”

Clint closes his eyes as she moves away, turning her attention back to Nathaniel, who is still inspecting his pasta more than he’s eating it.

“I ruined the mood, didn’t I?”

“No,” Laura says, but her voice has slid into the sad and resigned tone he knows she uses when she’s trying to placate him.

“I did. I totally ruined the mood.”

“Clint, it’s fine. Do you want to talk about it later?”

Clint nods slowly and Laura nods back, taking a seat at the table.

“Okay. So we’ll talk about it later.”

Clint waits until after dinner, until Cooper and Lila have gone to bed and until Nathaniel has gone down for the first of what Clint knows will be at least two different bedtimes -- because despite being in the same place for six months, he still hasn’t adapted to being in an unfamiliar space.

“Busy?” Clint asks as he leans on the doorframe separating their bedroom from the short hallway. Laura looks up from where she’s been writing in a journal.

“Just budgeting. I swear, we need groceries so often, I’m about to put a mandate on my kids eating anything that’s not soup.”

“Got a second, then?”

“For you?” Laura turns around and grins. “Always.”

Clint smiles back. “I want -- I mean, I do want sex. But that’s not why I want to talk.”

“Oh.” Laura looks disappointed, but there’s also a hint of worry that Clint can see immediately flashing over her face.

“Everything’s fine,” he assures her. “This isn’t me coming to tell you something’s happened.”

“Good.” Laura looks a little calmer, her face becoming less pale, and Clint aches as he watches the lines around her eyes and across her forehead even out. Despite years of being trained for this life, it was never easy watching her come apart at the seams because of his own stupid choices.

“So what’s wrong?”

Clint chokes down a laugh. “Like you can’t tell after fifteen years.”

Laura shrugs. “To be honest, I thought you wouldn’t want me to assume like that, so I was giving you the opportunity to talk before I jumped on you.”

He sighs, walking forward and sitting on the bed. He thinks about how to start and decides to just come out with it; beating around the bush with Laura had never been his strong point.

“Maybe we should think about going home.”

Clint’s not sure if that’s what he actually _meant_ to say -- the thought has been on his mind longer than he wants to admit but he was supposed to talk about Natasha, not bring up something a little more serious.

“What makes you say that?”

Clint shrugs. “I mean, it’s been six months. I’ve been checking in with Fury, and no one’s really on our trail...we might be able to do the rest of this house arrest thing in the comfort of our real house, you know?”

Laura swallows, looking concerned. “I mean, I _don’t_ know. We moved because we were worried about our safety and our children’s safety, and we’re still living that anxiety. I trusted your instincts that going away was the best way to keep us safe, but how are we supposed to know when everything is just suddenly...okay?”

Clint’s unable to find an answer to that, so he decides to say what he should’ve started with.

“Natasha came by today.” He ignores Laura’s shocked face, knowing the surprise is less from giving her the information so late and more from the fact that Natasha hadn’t shown her face since she left to go off with Steve and Sam. “Caught me while I was walking with Nate near the house. I asked her to stay -- I wasn’t trying to hide her visit or anything,” he continues, even though he knows he doesn’t need to justify anything to Laura, not after all these years. “But she didn’t want to.”

Laura carefully closes her journal and gets up from the chair. “So what did she want?” she asks, joining him on the bed. Clint takes her hand, wrapping their fingers together.

“She asked me to go help her with something. I don’t know what. She wouldn’t tell me. She just said she needed me and that she’d be back tomorrow and either I could choose to go, or...or not.”

Laura stays very still, tracing her thumb over Clint’s knuckles. “I know I’m supposed to be supportive,” she says finally. “I love you, and I trust you, and I trust her. But this has been so hard on all of us.”

“I know,” he says quietly. “That’s why I wanted to talk about it.”

Laura gives him a look. “Clint, I don’t even know if I have a horse in this race anymore.”

“Of course you do,” he replies. “Laura, why the hell do you think I stayed retired? You’re first. You’re _always_ first. But I just can’t shake this feeling. I can’t stop thinking that if I don’t go with her, if I don’t go…”

“If you don’t go, it may really be the last time you see her,” Laura finishes. “Clint, there’s something more to this, isn’t there? Something more than just making the choice to go with Natasha or stay here?” She takes his hand, squeezing it tightly.

“You know what I think?” she asks gently when Clint remains silent. “I think that this isn’t about Natasha. It’s about you. You readjusted your life after the Raft incident. You got used to being home. You were here in a way you haven’t been since before you started at SHIELD. And now you’re thinking that you have to readjust all over again. You’re scared.”

Clint swallows, knives scraping against his throat. “Yeah, but I’m not a twenty year old kid going off to my first gig,” he says slowly. “I’m a nearly forty year old man with three kids who’s been doing this for years. This was -- _is_ \-- my job, I can’t be _scared_ , Laura.”

“But if you are, it’s okay.” Laura puts her arm around him. “Clint, imagine that I’m Natasha right now. What would she say if you told her this?”

“Nothing,” Clint says, trying to smile. “She’d probably just kick me in the balls. She always did look for an excuse to do that.”

“She called me a week ago,” Laura admits, and now it’s Clint’s turn to look at her in surprise. “While you were picking everyone up from school one day. We talked for an hour. I think she was bored while she was waiting around for Steve and Sam to finish something. She apologized for calling and said she was using a burner, nothing detectable, and I asked how she was. She said she was fine and keeping busy, but she sounded like she missed things.”

Clint hasn’t been married to his wife for years to know what her carefully worded confession of their conversation meant. It was Laura’s way telling him that she knew Natasha wasn’t just showing up to mess with them -- that she understood how equally hard it was for her to be in this position.

“You think I should go?”

Laura looks down at the polished hardwood floor. “I think you shouldn’t be scared of doing something you’re good at just because you stopped doing it. That’s never been you.”

Clint glances around at the room that’s trying to pass as their home. “There are reasons I wouldn’t go, though,” he says. “The least of which being that the last time I left because someone needed me, it put us in this situation.”

“And I could cite a lot of other things as reasons to turn this down,” Laura agrees, her voice soft. “But then I wouldn’t be a very good wife, would I?”

“You are the very best of wives,” Clint promises, kissing her. “When I come back, we’ll talk about what to do -- if we should leave.”

“You really want to leave that conversation to me to have the upper hand on?” Laura raises an eyebrow, and Clint laughs.

“Yeah, fair point. You’re not Baton Barton for nothing.”

“I still resent that nickname, you know,” Laura grumbles as Clint puts his hands on her shoulders, carefully pushing down the sleeves of her loose fitting shirt, and moves his mouth to her clavicle. He smiles when Laura lets a small moan escape, an indication she’s going to give into his urges sooner than he’s expected.

“I know. Good thing I didn’t come up with it.”

 

***

 

Clint hates lying to his children. He didn’t mind doing it when they were little and he was running off for a few days at a time, because he knew they couldn’t understand why he would go away -- and he never had to worry about answering for it, as long as he came home.

But as Cooper and Lila got older, he began to feel more and more uncomfortable about not being open about where he was going and why he was leaving so often. He knew he couldn’t really tell his kids what he did, that was the epitome of Bad Parenting 101 and Laura would have him on the street faster than he could shoot an arrow. So he told them different stories, and also the truth -- daddy had to go to work, daddy traveled for work, daddy had a dangerous job and sometimes he had to leave for awhile but he would always come home.

Except now he _was_ home and he _had_ been home and he was going off again. And while he knows he doesn’t have to, he also knows he’s well past the point of pretending that he can just stop caring about Natasha.

“So where are you going?” Cooper asks suspiciously as Clint puts a few flannel shirts and some underwear into his bag.

“Just need to do some work,” Clint replies. “Keeping you guys safe, like I promised.”

“But we’ve _been_ safe,” Cooper observes as Clint retrieves his bow and a quiver of arrows from the closet.

“Never can be too safe, kiddo.” Clint finishes throwing clothing items in his bag. “Look, can you do me a favor and make sure your mom and sister are okay while I’m gone?”

Cooper nods. “I guess.”

“Good.” Clint leans over to kiss him, and is surprised when Cooper hugs him tightly, throwing his arms around his waist.

“Only for a few days,” Clint assures his son when he pulls away, smoothing down his hair. “A week, at most. Promise.”

Lila meets him in the middle of the small hallway, looking up with questioning eyes that make every bone in Clint’s body hurt. He reaches down and picks her up, gear and bag and all, allowing her to nestle into his arms. For once, he doesn’t feel concerned about the fact that his usually chatty daughter is preferring silence -- he knows touching is better than talking right now. He kisses Lila then puts her down gently, walks over to Nathaniel and Laura, and kisses the baby before turning to Laura, using his free hand to cup her chin.

“This is less of a goodbye than before you went off to help Wanda,” Laura says as he tips her face up.

“No fun bedroom moments this time,” he agrees, letting his gaze move subtly to the corner where Cooper and Lila are standing. For some reason, he feels like he should be more worried about going off like this given that the stakes are so much higher, but trying to downplay his departure in order to keep his family from worrying has the added effect of pulling up years of learned memory that comes with brushing off dangerous missions.

“Just be safe,” she whispers as he pulls his hand away. _Be safe, and tell Natasha I hope she’s safe too_. He sees the added words in her eyes and nods, kissing her again.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Putting one foot in front of the other is easy but trying not to turn around when the door closes behind him is hard. He walks briskly, navigating through trees and dirt paths until he’s out of the woods and standing alongside a desolate road. Natasha’s waiting for him, standing a few feet away, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

“Good call,” she says as he approaches, eyeing his bag and bow.

“Yeah, well. I have a history of being intrigued by cryptic missions from you,” Clint replies.

Natasha smiles, leading him to a quinjet that’s parked in the middle of a wide pasture, cloaked in stealth mode until she reveals it. As Clint boards, following Natasha up the ramp, he realizes how long it’s been since he’s been on a proper quinjet -- all of Natasha’s visits throughout the years had been through commercial travel, with the exception of emergencies, but since house arrest he hadn’t done anything relating to work in months.

“Looks cleaner,” he remarks as he puts his bag down and runs a finger against the control panels. Natasha slides into the pilot seat beside him.

“You think I’d let anyone make my quinjet look like a bachelor pad?” she asks dryly. “I don’t even let Steve and Sam eat in here.”

“Yeah,” Clint says, because he believes it. “Where are the lovebirds, anyway?”

“They’re fine.” Natasha waves her hand in the air. “Dropped them off for some mission in Syria, a Chitauri weapons thing. They can handle themselves for a few days.”

“Right,” Clint says, dropping into the co-pilot seat. He watches her switch on the controls, every bit of muscle memory coming back, his fingers twitching with a familiar urge even though he has no desire to actually concentrate and fly anything right now.

“So this isn’t some intense undercover op or anything, right? Like, I won’t just disappear for weeks?”

“I don’t anticipate this to be a month long assignment, no,” Natasha says as she urges the quinjet into the air.

“Good. Because I told Cooper and Lila I’d be back within a week.”

“I think that’s fair.”

Clint can’t detect anything in her voice that implies she’s trying to tell him otherwise, so he doesn’t nudge that particular exchange further. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” he points out. “Or what we’re doing. Or what I’m even supposed to do that apparently can’t be done by other people.”

Natasha stays quiet, concentrating on pushing the jet higher, and Clint tries to relax during the ascent. Once they’ve above the clouds, she hits a few buttons, allowing the jet to settle into autopilot. Natasha gets up and walks to the back of the quinjet, opening a cooler and pulling out a beer. Clint stares at her in confusion as she holds it out, but he takes it and starts to drink as she sits down next to him.

“Steve and Sam have been intercepting messages from a lot of different channels,” Natasha starts, sitting down across from him. “Government channels, for you and Wanda and Vision and Scott, and law enforcement channels from different countries for everyone else. It’s how we figure out where to go and who to help. While we were listening the other day, I caught someone mention the name Sally Ann Carter.”

Clint feels his forehead crinkle into thick lines. “Feel free to call me an old dad brain, but am I supposed to know who that is?”

Natasha smiles grimly. “A woman I left for dead.”

Clint blinks, the beer bottle halfway to his mouth. He puts it down slowly. “What?”

“Years ago, after I had left the Red Room, I was hunting down KGB agents who were killing former Black Widows,” Natasha says, her voice low. “I came across a girl -- Sally Anne -- who had been on the run, and I took her under my wing for a little bit. I knew I was being tracked and that everything was dangerous, but it was the first time I’d had some kind of human connection in awhile and...and it was nice.”

Clint absorbs everything Natasha’s saying, and takes a long drink. “So what happened?”

Natasha shrugs. “The KGB eventually caught up with me. They attacked me and Sally Anne, and when I came to, she was gone. I knew those agents. And they knew that she had been important to me since she was traveling with me. I couldn’t imagine they didn’t kill her...there was no reason for them to keep her alive. So I just assumed she was dead, and didn’t even try to go after her. I haven’t seen or thought about her in years...but when I heard the name, I knew.”

“So you left her after she was captured, and now you found out she’s clearly not dead,” Clint observes. “So, what? You’re setting out on some rescue mission to right your wrongs or something?”

“Or something,” Natasha echos. “She’s currently being held in Cuba. That’s where the conversation came from that we tapped into, and I managed to trace it to some warehouse while no one was paying attention.”

Clint downs the rest of his beer in lieu of figuring out what to say. “Nat, I get how finding this out can shake you up. But honestly, I still don’t get what I’m doing here aside from providing company.”

Natasha walks back to the quinjet’s pilot seat. She sits down, staying silent, and takes off autopilot as she plays with the controls.

“Do you think I want to see her?” Natasha asks finally, not turning around. “Do you think I want anyone _else_ to see her? This girl, she looked up to me. She was the first person who didn’t look at me like a monster. And instead of protecting her, I _left_ her. She’s alive, which means I have no idea what might’ve been done to her over the years, and who knows what she’s going through right now.” She pauses. “I don’t want anyone else to know about this.”

Clint rubs his eyes and gets up, easing down next to her. “They’d understand, you know,” he offers. “Sam and Steve. It was a mistake.”

“It was a selfish mistake,” Natasha says quietly.

Clint wants to refute that, to say that maybe not everyone has the amount of red in their ledger that she does but they’ve all done a goddamn lot, and that no one would judge her after all they’d been through for something she’d done when she was clearly in a different state of mind. But he knows Natasha. He knows why she doesn’t want anyone else there. And he knows why she couldn’t do this alone, or even let it go.

“Got your back, then.”

Natasha gives the sky a small smile.

 

***

 

They land at a safe house near Havana, one that Natasha has remembered existing from some earlier missions and that’s miraculously still standing and seemingly undisturbed. He walks in and drops his bag, surveying the space. It’s decent-sized, as far as safe houses go -- a passable kitchen/common room, and two small bedrooms on opposite sides of each other as well as a common bathroom.

“Just like old days, huh?”

“The old days would be you stepping out to call Laura every five minutes,” Natasha says as she starts making her way around the room, double checking for traps and anything that might signal trouble. She freezes as she puts her hand on the window and then turns around, wincing. “Sorry. Too soon?”

Clint shakes his head. “It’s fine. Let’s get the rest of the protocol checks out of the way so we can sleep. I’m exhausted.”

“Yes, because you did so much today,” Natasha deadpans, turning her attention back to checking locks, nooks, and crannies, while Clint takes it upon himself to inspect the house’s vantage points from both outside and inside.

“Looks clear,” he says when he comes back inside, closing the door behind him. “You got anything for this proposed rescue mission that you need me to look over?”

“Not really,” Natasha admits. “Just a location and an idea of how many people we might be up against. Honestly, we’ve faced worse.”

“That’s a relief,” Clint remarks as he takes off his shirt and stretches. He debates brushing his teeth and actually getting ready for bed but decides against it once he takes off his pants, flopping down in his boxers and letting himself sink into the crappy mattress.

“I do feel bad, you know,” Natasha says, sitting next to him, her blonde hair a stark contrast against her dark tac suit even in the dim lighting. “I care about them, too -- Laura and Cooper and Lila and Nate. I don’t want to put them in danger or feel like you have to keep running from them.”

Clint turns his head so he can see her more easily. “Laura told me you called her.”

Natasha nods. “I did. I just...I didn’t want her to think that I had totally abandoned you guys.” She pauses, as if she needs to make sure she can gather herself before she continues. “You’re really okay?”

“Yeah,” Clint muses. “It’s actually kinda nice. No screaming children to wake me up...no singalongs of ‘Love Is An Open Door’ assaulting me even after I’ve turned the television off.”

“Well, I’m glad to give you a break, then.” Natasha puts a hand on his leg, getting up. Clint closes his eyes; he knows Natasha will join him eventually and it’s comforting to know that there’s at least one thing that hasn’t changed about their partnership in the time they’ve been apart. So when he feels her climb into the small bed and settle next to him, he can’t help but smile.

“Been awhile.”

Natasha sighs, shoving her legs under the covers. “You retired.”

Clint makes a face in his sleep. “You went out on your own and left me. _You’re_ the one that had a choice, you know.”

“I know.” When Natasha speaks again, her voice is soft, so soft that Clint almost misses what she says.

“I wish I would’ve stayed.”

 

***

 

Waking up the next morning is hard. Clint’s sleep schedule is more than a little screwed up thanks to Nathaniel, but he still manages to sleep later than he means to, woken up only by the unmistakable smell of bacon and coffee.

“You’re kidding,” he says as he struggles to sit up. “You’re making breakfast?”

“And you’re speaking to me before coffee,” Natasha says with an eyebrow raise. “I must’ve missed more than I thought while I was away.”

Clint grunts. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s only because I know you’re going to give me some, otherwise I’m going to take you down.”

“There’s the Barton I know.” Natasha takes a small carafe of coffee and pours some into a generic looking mug, and Clint resists the urge to down it all at once when she puts it into his hands. “Also, since we’re not exactly on a schedule, I figured I’d let you sleep for a little bit.”

“Appreciate it,” he mumbles as he takes a small sip of steaming liquid, feeling the caffeine flow through his veins like an IV drip of blood being pumped through his system. He looks around the small house; it’s as bare and nondescript as any safe house but if there was something that was inherent of Natasha, it was that she always found one small personal item to put somewhere. His eagle eyes spy a tiny porcelain cat sitting on top of the cupboard -- a trinket that he remembers bringing her from one of his solo trips -- and he smiles.

After a few more sips of coffee, he feels like he can actually move, so he gets up and walks over to where she’s frying small pieces of bacon. When he picks one out of the pan with the tips of his fingers, Natasha rolls her eyes and swats at him, and he grins as he nimbly moves out of her reach.

“Care to tell me what I’ve missed?” Natasha asks as she slides the rest of the bacon onto a paper plate, shoving it towards him. Clint takes it to the small wooden table and forgoes the chair, hunching over on his elbows as he puts his coffee down.

“Nate’s talking more,” he says as she sits down across from him. “Just kinda dumb babbling half the time, but it’s cute. Lila’s gotten really into horses. Like, everything she freaking draws is a horse, so of course now that we’re literally living in the woods she thinks that she can convince us to get one. Cooper’s getting really good at archery. Laura’s so pissed about it. I’m thinking of getting him a new bow set for his birthday this year, though.” He stops talking when he realizes Natasha’s eager face has shifted into an expression of wistfulness. “What?”

“Nothing,” Natasha says in a tone that clearly means _something_. “It just feels like a lot’s happened while I’ve been gone.”

Clint bites down on the retort that it was _her_ choice to leave and _her_ choice to put her work first when she could’ve been much more lenient about the decision. “It’s only been six months, Nat.”

“I know that,” Natasha snaps. She takes a breath, letting it out slowly “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get annoyed. I guess everything just feels longer when you’re on the road.” She fingers a strip of greasy bacon. “You lose track of time, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Clint stares down into his coffee cup, the mood between them suddenly feeling heavy. “So, hey. Are we gonna go rescue your old friend, or what?”

“Not like _that_ ,” Natasha says, reaching over and ruffling his hair. “You can keep the goatee, though.”

“Laura likes it,” he offers. “And Lila thinks it’s cute.”

Natasha scrunches up her nose. “ _I_ don’t like it. And I also don’t think it’s cute.”

“Well, good thing I’m not married to you, then.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Natasha teases as she gets up from the table, stealing one more piece of bacon. “There were a lot of times you were unconscious and for all you know, I could have talked someone into ordaining us in a hospital room. I did have power of attorney before Laura.”

She lets that thought sit with him as she walks to another room where Clint assumes she’s stored her weapons and possibly the tac suit that she’d changed out of before going to sleep. He gulps down more coffee and decides to change as well, catching sight of his torso in the mirror set up near the bed. It gives him pause, not because he’s not used to seeing the many scars and injuries he’s accumulated over the years -- a map of his best and worst moments, and he can trace them all with his finger like a morbid constellation if he wants to -- but because the realization is starting to sink in that this is the first time he’s been back in the field since being plucked off the airport tarmac in Berlin by Ross’s men. He tears his gaze away from the mirror and grabs for the uniform that’s stuck in the bottom of his bag, thinking of Laura as he dresses.

_“What would Natasha do if you told her this?”_

_“Probably kick me in the balls.”_

Maybe a kick in the balls wouldn’t be such a bad thing right now. At the very least, it might make him feel like it really _was_ old times.

He finishes buckling his pants and adjusting his vest as Natasha re-enters the room, fully clothed. Clint does a double take, but this time it’s not because of her hair, which has been straightened from its sleep-induced curl and hangs over her ears like a golden curtain.

“Upgrade?” he asks, only a little annoyed that she hadn’t bothered to mention she’d made new adjustments to her suit. He notices that instead of black, there’s more green, and definitely more secure buckles. Her suit also looks thicker, like it’s made of tougher material than what he’s used to.

“More like a facelift,” she responds, nodding towards him. “I see you decided the one sleeve style wasn’t working for you.”

Clint realizes he hadn’t even been thinking when he grabbed his suit from the closet, he’d just taken the first outfit he’d seen, which happened to be his burgundy vest from when they fought in Sokovia.

“What can I say, I’m sentimental for flying cities where I almost died.”

Natasha sighs. “Please tell me you brought your bow and not a samurai sword or something ridiculous.”

“Natasha.” Clint resists the urge to throw a rogue sock in her face. “It’s me. And where the hell would I even _get_ a samurai sword?”

She grins as she holsters her glock and tests the charge on her widows bites. Clint reaches under the bed to pull out his bow case and quiver, glancing over his arrows and making some quick calculations. He slides a few special trick ones into his holster and straps his quiver to his chest.

“Alright, lay out where we’re going,” he announces. “My coffee’s going to wear off if we don’t get moving and then I won’t make a good impression on your former friend.”

Natasha, to her credit, doesn’t bother to trade more banter with him. Instead, she sits down and pulls out a small tablet.

“Sally Anne’s being kept here,” she says, pointing to a schematic of what looks like a large building. She enlarges the space with two fingers. “It’s a big place, but I figure you can use one of your grappling arrows and get us onto the roof so we can enter from there.”

“Probably,” Clint says with a nod. “What happens once we’re inside?”

“Dismantle the alarms and any power -- if we enter through here, we should come out right by a fuse box,” she continues, pointing with a half-gloved finger. “It should be a straight shot to the room where Sally Anne is being kept -- just a matter of how many guys we’ll have to take out in the process.”

“So, a typical run of the mill rescue mission,” Clint deduces. “With no extraction plan.”

“Strike Team Delta doesn’t need an extraction plan,” Natasha tells him smugly. “Remember?”

“Fine,” Clint says. “So what happens after that? We just turn her loose?” He’s half-joking, wondering if Natasha has actually thought about the fact she’ll be facing the woman she abandoned so many years ago. Clint expects her to reply with some sort of jab, and when she looks down at her hands he realizes what she’s confirming.

“Jesus Christ, Nat.”

“I’m not going to dump her in the middle of the highway,” Natasha snaps. “And I’m going to make sure she’s safe and not hurt. But I’m not bringing her back here.”

Clint puts two fingers to the side of each temple, feeling tired and old. “You’re talking about safety. It would be safer here.”

“Not for her,” Natasha replies automatically. “And not for me.” She hits a button that makes the tablet go dark. “We’re doing this my way, with my instructions. So are we good?”

Clint meets her eyes, understanding the dangerous edge in her voice, and knows he’d do himself a favor to drop the conversation.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “We’re good.”

 

***

 

The truth is, Clint has missed this.

For as much as he felt trepidation about picking up his bow and going back into the fight after finally getting himself into the mindset of “father first, agent second,” it all comes back to him like he’s never stopped – the fluidity of grabbing and shooting his arrows, the natural swing and pull, the instinct and perception. It’s embodied in him, in sinew and blood and in memory, and going through the motions of shooting and calculating doesn’t even feel unnatural after having been away from everything for so long. True, he hurts a little more than he thinks he would have even six months ago, but he tries to tell himself that’s not so much old age as it is being out of practice, no matter what his body remembers doing without much prompting.

Getting onto the roof of the building is easy, especially since Natasha has conveniently staked out a smaller roof nearby, making it easy for them to swing across without a lot of dangerous distance. Clint can’t help the laughter that escapes him as they land on the top of the roof, Natasha letting go of his body and of the tough cable attached to the end of the grappling hook arrow. 

“What’s so funny?”

“Sorry.” Clint tries to sober as he collects himself and his gear. “I just remembered how much you hated doing those Tarzan moves.”

“I don’t prefer it,” Natasha says. “But we don’t have much of a choice right now, and I was _not_ jumping that.”

“I wouldn’t have expected you to,” Clint placates, shouldering his bow. “You’re the Black Widow, you’re not Spider-Man.”

Natasha scoffs and leans down to pick the lock of the door that leads down into the building. “I’m much better than Spider-Man.”

She gets the door open easily but before she can prepare to drop down, Clint slaps his hand quietly on her shoulder. “Hey. Let me go. Gotta kill the fuse, remember?”

“Right.” Natasha steps back as Clint positions himself, and he’s almost ready to jump when he feels pressure on his own shoulder.

“Be careful, okay?”

Clint smiles at the blackness below him. “You got it.”

He lands quietly; Natasha had been right (not that he’d had doubts about that) and the fuse box is located right near him. He jimmies it open, making quick work of shutting down the power. Once the lights go out, he hears a chorus of annoyed yells, and feet pounding in his direction.

“Here we go,” he mutters, stringing an arrow. “Now would be a good time to make your entrance, Nat.”

As if on cue, Natasha drops down next to him just as the first assailant gets close enough to throw a punch. Despite the darkness, there’s enough natural light from some of the windows that allows Clint to see pretty clearly, especially with the advantage of his eagle-eyed vision. He ducks one punch while fielding another, grabbing an arrow and shooting the three attackers that are coming at him. He spies Natasha running past him, her blonde hair a beacon in the darkness as she dodges assaults coming from multiple directions, and she doesn’t even glance back to see if he’s okay or if he needs help. It seems wrong to pause and smile in a moment where he could be possibly get killed by not paying attention, but it’s hard to deny that there were some things that just never changed. Natasha and his partnership and their trust in each other was always going to be one of them.

He’s brought out of his momentary distraction by something hard coming down on the back of his head. Clint stumbles, losing his balance, and his knees slam into the ground. As he lurches forward, he bites down on the urge to yell, knowing it will only alert his attackers to the fact that he’s incapacitated. Instead, he fights through impending dizziness and grabs the knife hidden in his boot; he doesn’t see where he slashes but he knows he’s made a hit somewhere because he hears a scream and feels the unmistakable stickiness of blood running onto his hands. Clint grips the knife harder so that he doesn’t lose his hold on it and grabs an arrow with his free hand, twirling it cleanly.

 _Just like Twister,_ he thinks as he throws the arrow, his brain buzzing with white noise. Cooper and Lila were experts at the game but no matter how hard they tried, they could never beat their dad’s moves, even though it often left him popping Advil at the end of the night.

Clint manages to get out from underneath someone who is trying to grab his leg, crawling into a small space. He prays that no one will find him in the seconds or minutes it’s going to take him to pull himself back together but his reprieve is short-lived, and he doesn’t even see a face before a boot is shoved into his chest. As he struggles to catch his breath, his brain registers a heavy thud, and a gentle hand is placed on top of his head. When Clint stares up blearily, his eyes meeting a sea of white-gold.

“Thanks for that,” he mutters, which is about all he can muster. Natasha looks worse than he does, her suit ripped and her hair disheveled, and from the way she’s standing he can tell she’s hurt more than her face is letting on. Still, he lets her pull him up slowly. As he rises, he takes full stock of the assault they’ve taken on; Natasha had been right -- this was nothing worse than what they’d dealt with over the years at SHIELD, and certainly nowhere near their most dangerous missions, SHIELD or not -- but damned if he wasn’t exhausted.

As he moves his gaze over the prone bodies, he notices for the first time the girl Natasha is carrying. Unconscious, with Natasha bearing most of her weight, her blonde hair -- darker than Natasha’s platinum -- obscures most of her face.

“It’s all good. Nothing a little Widow’s bite couldn’t take care of. And some new gadgets.” She nods towards the hallway. “Come on, I think we can pretty much walk out of here now. There’s no one else in this space as far as I know. These guys were just using it as their hideout.”

She starts walking slowly and Clint follows, helping her support the girl who he assumes must be Sally Anne as they slowly limp out of the building together. Natasha steers them towards a darkened alley, and Clint would laugh about how cliche the whole mission is turning out to be except he’s concerned with the fact that he hurts more than he’s expected to. Despite moving easily, Natasha doesn’t look like she’s in much better shape.

“You said you weren’t leaving her like this,” Clint says as he leans back against the wall, shouldering the brunt of Sally Anne’s weight as Natasha takes a break from carrying her.

“I’m not.” Natasha runs sweaty and bloody fingers through her hair, streaking rivers of red into the blonde. “There’s a hotel down the block, and I plan on making sure she has a room. Also, I have these.” She reaches into a hidden pocket and takes out an ID as well as what Clint recognizes are at least two untraceable credit cards.

“So you’re just giving her a new identity?”

“No. I’m making sure no one knows who she is, so when I deliver her to the hotel and get her a room it’s not under her name, should anyone come looking for her.” She grimaces as she rotates her wrist. “The hotel is a few blocks away. I’ll drop her off.”

“What?” Clint moves too quickly and stumbles from dizziness, barely catching himself and Sally Anne before he falls. “No way.”

“Clint.” He’s not sure how she manages to sound so annoyed when she’s also injured, but he does know that’s classic Natasha. “It’s fine. She’s not hurt, just maybe drugged and exhausted. I’ll pass her off as drunk, get her a room, and be back before you realize I’m gone.”

“But --”

“Do you want to drag her into the street looking like Robin Hood?” Natasha snaps. “Stay. Here.”

And then she’s gone, limping away while supporting Sally Anne against her shoulder. Clint leans back against the wall and closes his eyes, thinking of Laura. He wonders what she’s doing -- maybe she was cooking, or singing to Nate if he couldn’t sleep. He thinks of Lila, and wonders if she’s asking where her dad is yet, and what Laura might say in return. He thinks of Cooper, and wonders if he’s gotten better at his bow or if he’s practiced while Clint’s been gone. He wishes that he could just go home, walk into the house and have Laura take care of him, soothing him with words and her gentle hands while also giving him the once-over that he’s so used to.

True to her word, Natasha returns in what feels like twenty minutes, though Clint knows her and knows it was probably ten minutes at most. Clint raises an eyebrow as she walks back into his view alone.

“Everything good?”

“Yes.”

He watches her face carefully, noting that the stoic mask she’s wearing has no intention of slipping, and decides against challenging her. “Wish we had a quinjet right now,” he says as he adjusts his bow.

“Me too,” Natasha agrees. “I’m not exactly happy about having to hail a cab.”

Clint jerks his head towards her, another dizzy spell overtaking him, and he has to hold the wall to steady himself. “Excuse me, I think my concussion is worse than I thought. Did you just say you want to hail a cab?”

“Would you prefer to walk all the way back to the safe house with bad injuries in the middle of the night?” Natasha asks pointedly.

“Yeah, but…” Clint frowns. “We’re _both_ supposed to be off the grid. And with what money are we getting a cab with, anyway? Your sexual favors? Because you don’t really look like you’re really top shape to fuck anyone right now.”

Natasha ignores his comment and Clint watches as she pats down her legs while wincing in pain. Eventually, she pulls a small roll of bills from another hidden pocket that he’s been unaware of.

“Shut up, don’t talk, and play nice,” she instructs, gesturing towards the open street. “We’ll get dropped off about a mile from the safe house and walk the rest of the way. We can hide our injuries. And if anyone asks, we got into a bar fight or something.”

“With my bow,” Clint mutters. “And our suits.”

“You think anyone’s going to be looking at you, Barton? When they can look me? And do you think anyone really _cares_?”

She’s got a point, he realizes, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. Maybe he really was too paranoid about everything. Maybe it really wasn’t time to go home after all if he couldn’t even think about hailing a cab in a foreign place, somewhere no one would expect him to be. It’s something he would’ve done without question during any other mission, even while trying to stay undercover.

He follows Natasha out of the alley and she manages to find an available car easily. True to Natasha’s word (and also, he figures, given the time of night) the driver barely pays them any mind as they climb in. Clint tries his best to stay awake, knowing if nothing else he has to walk a goddamn mile until he can really pass out, but he’s not that successful.

He barely remembers getting out of the cab, much less making it back in one piece.

 

***

 

It’s the rain wakes him up, pulling him out of his slumber.

Clint rouses herself against his will, his shoulder aching with pain and also the familiar tingly numbness that comes with having fallen asleep in a less than comfortable position. He gropes for the bottle that he knows Laura usually leaves by the bed, especially if she knows he’s running out for some assignment, but there’s nothing tangible for his hand to grab.

“You’re quite the mess.”

Natasha’s raspy voice brings his sleep-deprived and pain-filled body into consciousness. He forces his eyes open, slowly remembering where he is and why he’s in a random safehouse bed rather than at home.

“You should talk.”

“Yeah?” Natasha sounds closer now and when Clint turns his head, he can see her leaning against the doorway, looking natural albeit uncomfortable. “Cuts and bruises and a sprained wrist. What’s _your_ damage?”

Clint closes his eyes again. “Broken ribs -- well, at least one. Gonna hurt like hell if I can’t bind it. And minor concussion. Probably shouldn’t have fallen asleep, but I’m not dead yet. Are you happy now?”

“Hardly,” Natasha says, moving to sit next to him. “But if this is the condition that we come back in, maybe we shouldn’t be in this line of work anymore.”

“We’re not _that_ old,” Clint reminds her, trying to keep the bitter grumpiness out of his voice as Natasha puts a hand against his stomach; he’s still in his uniform and he feels like absolute shit but he doesn’t blame Natasha for not wanting to undress him given the states they’re in.

“Not broken, at least,” she says as she presses against his flesh, causing him to gasp in pain. “Just bruised. I can get you some ice, if you want.”

“Yeah, fine.”

Natasha gives him a look but gets up and walks out of the room, returning with a small ice pack. She makes her way back to the bed and hands it to him, helping him place it on his body.

“Nat.”

“Hmmm?” She looks at him and he notices there’s sadness and a little bit of vacantness in her eyes.

“You okay with everything that happened last night?”

Natasha tenses at the question but the rigidness of her body soon falls away. “Why wouldn’t I be? We did what I wanted and needed to do. She’s safe now, and hopefully, she’ll stay safe. That’s all that matters.”

Clint takes a few slow breaths, knowing any sudden movements will probably hurt. “But you didn’t even want her to know that her former friend was alive? That you was the one who saved her?”

“I don’t know if she was ever my friend,” Natasha admits quietly. “But I’m pretty sure she was one of the only people in my life who never hated me.”

“I never hated you,” Clint says, reaching out to put a hand on her knee. “Laura never hated you.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Natasha responds, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “And I don’t blame you. I was a mess, and you had no right to trust me.”

Clint groans. “Oh stop it with the self pity,” he says tiredly. “You were a mess, yeah, but you weren’t as bad as you think. You weren’t all Red Room, Natasha. At least, not by the time I met you. Definitely not by the time Laura met you.”

Natasha smiles tightly. “You know, I’ve missed your pep talks. Steve tries, but...he’s not too good at them. And Sam’s even worse.”

Clint shrugs, forgetting about his injuries, and grunts as a spasm of pain jets through him. “They’ll learn. I did.”

Natasha sighs. “I don’t know.”

Clint waits before he speaks again, trying to pretend he’s actually thinking about his words before he says them out loud. “You don’t have to go back.”

“I don’t,” Natasha echoes, and Clint knows what she’s going to say before she says it. “I do, though.”

“Why?”

Natasha gets up from the bed and walks to the window, placing her elbows on the sill while being careful to keep the weight off her injured wrist. “What do you want me to say, Clint? That I have to keep scrubbing out more red in my ledger? That I like running around undercover? That this is what I’m supposed to do because I don’t have a place to go if we don’t have a home base?”

“I want you to say you’re _happy_ ,” Clint snaps. “If you’re going around tossing bad guys into the crapper with Steve and Sam, I want you to admit that you’re at least _happy_ about it! And you _have_ a home base, Nat! You have us! You _know_ that!”

Natasha turns around, fixing him with a sad stare. “You know, I’ve never thought the farm could be compromised,” she says slowly. “It was stupid to think that. But I always thought it was somewhere that would always be safe. When you ended up in house arrest and then decided to leave --”

“I didn’t like it any more than you did,” Clint breaks in. “But I had to make a choice, and I was trying to keep my family safe.”

“I know,” Natasha says heavily. “I guess I just started thinking...I mean, the farm is the only thing I’ve had that hasn’t ever changed. And the fact that it might not be there one day for some reason is something I never considered.” She runs a hand through her hair, fingernails chipping away at flakes of dried blood. “Is Laura mad?”

Clint considers the question. “She’s not mad,” he says finally, because it’s the truth. “She’s sad. She wishes you wouldn’t stay away and that you didn’t feel like you had to distance yourself. Look, Nat, I get it. I do. You lost the Red Room, you lost your parents, you lost SHIELD, and I guess you even lost us with this bullshit Accords thing. And yeah, the farm may not be here one day. But _we_ will.” He pauses to adjust himself in bed. “Go take your missions, Natasha, if that’s what you want to do. But don’t close yourself off to ever coming back just because you’re scared. That’s never been you.”

“That’s never been you, either,” Natasha reminds him. “By the way, if you think I can’t read you by now, you’re really dumb.”

Clint slumps back in bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I wasn’t worried I could do it,” he says with a sigh. “I was fine when I was out there. But when I’m home, I’m a dad. And when I’m out of it for too long now…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He knows he doesn’t need to but he would have _liked_ to, just to show that he was confidently in control of the feelings she’s pulled out of him.

“Tough re-entry,” Natasha says after a long pause. “Maybe you just need some small missions every so often so you don’t feel like you’re too distanced from everything.

“I can’t do that,” Clint replies, a little annoyed she’d even suggest it knowing his situation. “You know that I can’t.”

“Well, maybe you just need something really big to bring you back into the fight, to remind you _why_ you’re good at what you do,” Natasha continues. “Clint, you told me you just wanted me to be happy with what I’m doing. I want you to be happy too. And I want you to do your job, when you want to, and not be scared of doing it.”

Clint closes his eyes as the rain grows louder, slapping its wet hands against the roof.

“It’s pretty bad out, isn’t it?”

Natasha nods, letting out a breath. “Yeah. Also, your lazy ass slept half the day.”

Clint opens his eyes and finds that the teasing glint in her eyes matches the smirk in her tone. “If you’re tired, there’s always extra room.”

He doesn’t know whether it’s the injuries or the conversation that spurs such a quick response, but she walks across the room and carefully crawls into bed, settling herself against the pillow while moving herself as close as possible to his body without exacerbating his injuries. In an instant, everything feels familiar, calm, like they’ve done this a thousand times before -- because they have. Before Laura, before Lila, before Cooper and Nathaniel. Before SHIELD, before Hydra, before the Accords, through it all and after.

“Well, on the bright side, you were definitely not gone for a week,” Natasha says. “So you should have no issue getting home to Laura without getting in trouble. Maybe you can even get home before Nathaniel falls asleep for the tenth time in a day.”

“More likely that I’ll get home before one of my kids ends up on the receiving end of an injury that they gave each other,” Clint mutters. He glances over at Natasha, who is focusing intently on the thin bedspread.

“You’ll never know if she’s alive.”

Natasha nods. “I know,” she agrees. “And I might not ever know. But at least I know I did something good while I had the chance.” She finally looks up, and her eyes are soft, filled with a genuine comfort. “Thanks for coming, Clint.”

He smiles, putting his hand on her knee, and squeezes it gently. “Thanks for asking, Nat.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I took a lot of liberties with [Sally Anne Carter](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/sally-anne-carter/4005-66706/), including the liberty of blending 616 comics and the MCU. But she does have a history with Natasha, so it was fun for me to play with that given what Natasha's been through by the start of Infinity War. (And, really, through the whole MCU so far.)
> 
> Find me on tumblr @isjustprogress for fic and more.


End file.
